"The definitive biography of Herbert Hoover, one of the most remarkable and least understood Americans of the twentieth century--a wholly original account that will forever change the way Americans understand the man, his presidency, and his battle against the Great Depression. An impoverished orphan who built a fortune. A great humanitarian. A president elected in a landslide and then resoundingly defeated four years later. Arguably the father of both New Deal liberalism and modern conservatism, Herbert Hoover lived one of the most extraordinary American lives of the twentieth century. Yet however astonishing, his accomplishments are often eclipsed by the perception that Hoover was inept and heartless in the face of the Great Depression. Now, Kenneth Whyte vividly re-creates Hoover's rich and dramatic life in all its complex glory. He follows Hoover through his Iowa boyhood, his cutthroat business career, his brilliant rescue of millions of lives during World War I and the 1927 Mississippi floods, his misconstrued presidency, his defeat at the hands of Franklin Roosevelt, his devastating years in the political wilderness, his return to grace as Truman's emissary to help European refugees after World War II, and his final vindication in the days of Kennedy's "New Frontier." Ultimately, Whyte brings to light Hoover's complexities and contradictions--his modesty and ambition, his ruthlessness and extreme generosity--as well as his profound political legacy. [This] is the epic, poignant story of the deprived boy who, through force of will, made himself the most accomplished figure in the land, and who experienced a range of achievements and failures unmatched by many Americans of his, or perhaps any, era. Here, for the first time, is the definitive biography that fully captures the colossal scale of Hoover's momentous life and volatile times." -- dust jacket.

"My Dear People is made up of three different alternating ingredients, each by a different author: a historical account of surrounding military events by Christopher McManus, Constance Crawford's commentary on her father's letters, and the letters themselves by Ned Crawford. These writings are interwoven chronologically here to make Private Ned Crawford's story comprehensible, entertaining, and moving. The letters Ned wrote to his best friend while serving as a soldier in World War I offer an intimate, quirky, and intelligent account of what it was like for a thirty-one-year-old man who abhorred war and any official interference with individual freedom to submit to a wartime draft and to perform his part in the enormous human drama that was the American Expeditionary Force."--Provided by publisher.

"In August 1966, a 14-year-old boy in Beijing is thrust into violence and chaos as Mao Ze-dong's Cultural Revolution begins to blaze across China. In this riveting memoir, Wei Yang Chao now tells his story--how rebels attacked and publicly humiliated his family, upended his education, and sent out of a country rendered unrecognizable by violence and radical ideology. At first he is swept up by the Red Guards but finds himself at the center of a bloody revolution. After mass rallies at Tiananmen Square, he witnesses attacks on teachers and professors, and the disintegration of his parents' lives as tolerance and freedom begin to crumble he finds himself cast into exile"--Amazon.com.

Victor Arnautoff reigned as San Francisco's leading mural painter during the New Deal era. Yet that was only part of an astonishing life journey from Tsarist officer to leftist painter. Robert W. Cherny's masterful biography of Arnautoff braids the artist's work with his increasingly leftist politics and the tenor of his times. Delving into sources on Russian emigres and San Francisco's arts communities, Cherny traces Arnautoff's life from refugee art student and assistant to Diego Rivera to prominence in the New Deal's art projects and a faculty position at Stanford University. As Arnautoff's politics moved left, he often incorporated working people and people of color into his treatment of the American past and present. In the 1950s, however, his participation in leftist organizations and a highly critical cartoon of Richard Nixon landed him before the House Un-American Activities Committee and led to calls for his dismissal from Stanford. Arnautoff eventually departed America, a refugee of another kind, now fleeing personal loss and the disintegration of the left-labor culture that had nurtured him, before resuming his artistic career in the Soviet Union that he had fought in his youth to destroy. (source: Nielsen Book Data) 9780252082306 20171204

"With the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Kiffin Yates Rockwell of Asheville, North Carolina, volunteered to fight for France. Initially serving with the French Foreign Legion, he soon became a founding member of the Lafayette Escadrille. This book covers Rockwell's early life and military service with the Lafayette Escadrille"-- Provided by publisher.